From HerCampus.com:
The Uterus Instruction Manual: Tampons, Pads and…wait, I thought that was it? By Jessica Schmidt
Why hello there, fellow uterus owner. I am sure you have had to deal with that lovely monthly gift that Mother Nature bestows upon us at some point by now. Whether you belong to the camp of pads, tampons, or both, I am sure that most of you have a box of your favourite brand stashed somewhere in your bathroom, ready for action. But what if I told you that pads and tampons aren’t the only products available? The companies that produce tampons and pads are a multimillion-dollar industry. These companies can keep their overhead low by creating cheap products, and the fact that tampons and pads are disposable means that the demand for them is constant. Beyond the money issues, there is a growing trend of health related problems stemming from the bleaches and other chemicals that go into these products to keep us and our nether-regions squeaky clean. Personally, I was tired of stuffing chemically bleached, Sahara-desert-dry wads of cotton into very sensitive areas. But what other options are there?
CupsOkay, anyone who does not already use a cup or know what it is may be initially disgusted or simply taken aback by this suggestion, because it is exactly what it sounds like. Usually made of silicone, a cup sits inside of your vagina much like a tampon, but instead of absorbing all that shed uterine lining, it simply catches it for disposal later. This means that once every 12 hours (yeah, you read that right) you simply remove the cup, dump it in the toilet, rinse and reinsert to be on your way. The downside of this type of product is that you do actually see a cupful of the stuff upon removal. Go ahead, stick out your tongue, make some blech-ing noises.Good? Alright, moving on. Given that all my vagina-training prior to using a cup taught me that period blood is a shameful fluid that should never been and needs to be disposed of as quickly as possible, I did find it weird at first. For myself, it is not the end of the world to witness the results of my period once every 12 hours, especially if it means I don’t have to stuff my vagina full of cotton. Because honestly, when you think about it, without the pressure of societal norms, which option is weirder?
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